


humbly make suit onto the king's highness

by greensleeved



Series: my lute be still for i have done [2]
Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, it might have been five hundred years since he died but it feels like two days, remembering your dead husband/brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21703312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greensleeved/pseuds/greensleeved
Summary: Anne awakes in the middle of the night, to find her sister-in-law in tears over the memory of George. They talk, bringing his memory to life.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn/Jane Parker Boleyn, George Boleyn/Jane Parker (mentioned)
Series: my lute be still for i have done [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1565164
Kudos: 28





	humbly make suit onto the king's highness

Anne had always struggled with nightmares- of Henry, of her parting with Elizabeth, of her days in the Tower, of the scaffold. Most nights when she awoke in the early hours, dampened with sweat and frozen in fear, she would be the only one awake. After finally getting her wits about her, she dragged herself out of bed, making her way to the kitchen. If anyone was ever awake, it was usually Katherine, curled on the couch with a comedy playing on the television- she would sit there for hours, eyes glazed over and past the point of exhaustion.  
They all carried the traumas of their past lives, and each dealt with them differently; but at one point or another, the memories would keep them awake.  
Anne was walking down the hall, blanket wrapped around her as if it were a shield, when she heard it. A suppressed whimper, and then a sob- coming from Jane’s room. Her sister-in-law was the last person Anne thought to find crying in the middle of the night. Her thoughts of making herself a cup of chamomile tea and trying to go back to sleep were dashed; instead Anne found herself knocking on the door.  
“Jane? Is everything alright?”  
The only response being another sob, Anne pushed the door open, finding Jane Parker-Boleyn curled on her side, back to Anne and face pressed to her pillow, on her bed, laptop open in front of her.  
Anne shuffled her way into the room, closing the door behind her as to not wake Katherine down the hall. “What’s going on Janey?” She asked, sitting on the edge of the other woman’s bed.  
A blubbering sound of attempted works escaped the stage manager’s mouth, her hand gesturing to her open computer.  
Anne’s eyebrows furrowed, reaching across Jane’s form to grab the laptop, bringing into her lap and running her finger across the trackpad, bringing it to life. It was paused on the ending scene of a romantic movie, couple embracing in a kiss. “This has you upset?”  
“G-George-” came out in between sobs.  
The brunette was confused a moment, before it dawned on her. “I miss him too.” She swallowed a lump that was sitting in her throat. Of course, watching a romance while so obviously exhausted would remind Jane of her long dead husband. Anne’s brother.  
She didn’t give a moment’s thought before laying down next to her sister-in-law, bringing her blanket over both of them. She could still see him in her mind- his dark hair and twinkling eyes, the grin he would wear when teasing her as brothers do.  
“He should be here with us,” Anne whispered, staring at the ceiling.  
She felt Jane’s body move, turning towards her. “If anyone deserved it, it’s him,” Jane murmured, voice hoarse. “Why isn’t he?”  
Anne pondered the question, chewing the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. Maybe because he’s a man, and we’re women. Maybe he was finished- who knows?”  
Jane’s hands wiped at her tear streaked face. “He would love it here.”  
Anne let out a chuckle, finished early by a sob from the back of her throat. “We wouldn’t be able to get him to shut up about any of it. ‘Oh Anne, look at this! Jane, let’s go to Sunday service at this church this time!’” She gave a shake of her head, attempting to blink away tears at the thought of her brother joining them in this time and place.  
“We can have the world in our hands now,” Jane murmured. “He would have loved that. Being able to connect with people everywhere.”  
“Global politics, he would never shut up about it.”  
A moments silence passed between the two.  
“I miss him so much, sometimes I feel as if my heart is torn,” Jane admitted. “It feels like I’m perpetually living the seventeenth of May, every day. He’s so close, yet so far.”  
Anne nodded her head. She had only had to live two days without her brother, and now she was damned to lifetime without him.  
“He was my favourite,” she whispered. “When we were little, it was always him and I. Playing throughout Hever, laughing and running as only children do. As much as I loved Mary, even then we were too different. It was always George and Anne, never Anne and Mary.”  
Jane nodded her head at Anne’s words, watching her face. “Tell me about him as a child.” Sometimes, late at night when sleep felt forever away, Jane would imagine the children she and George might have had. Those nights, in her dreams, she would hold a black haired baby, and tears of joy would slide down her face. But she would always awake to empty arms, and her heart would feel hollow.  
Anne’s face held a smile, as if she were five hundred years away. “He was always smart, George was. The three of us would be tutored together, as much as we could be. He would be like father, we all knew it. George always has a mind for diplomacy.” Anne continued, accounting stories of their childhood- the games they would play, the trouble they would get up to. One story in particular, about a time they had frightened Mary by pretending to be ghosts, had both Anne and Jane laughing.  
“He was always so kind to me,” Jane said, when the laughing had subsided. “He would write me poems- sometimes long, often just short little sonnets or verses.” She smiled in memory. “And when he was away, he would send me letters.”  
“Oh, his poems!” Anne nearly rolled off the bed, turning to look at Jane. “I wish I had committed more of them to memory. He had such a way with words.”  
“It’s a shame, that they’re gone.” Jane sighed, closing her eyes, attempted to picture the ink on paper, the slant of George’s writing.  
Anne scoffed. “Probably something else we can blame on Henry- trying to rid the world and court of all traces of me, including George.”  
Jane had lived in a world post-George for six years, and was now doomed to another life without him. “Do you remember how happy he would get when talking about the reformation?”  
“Oh my god.” Anne rolled her eyes. “As if he would ever shut up about it.” While Anne had been a staunch supporter of the reformation, it was sometimes as if the reformation was George’s true purpose. There was nothing he loved speaking of more than religion, and his support of the reformation.  
They talked throughout the night, trading stories and tidbits about George, interspersed with laughter and tears. George might be centuries out of reach, but his memory lived within him, and that night it was almost as if he were alive again.  
When the sun shone through the windows that morning, Jane and Anne Boleyn were still sharing the covers, laughing about a comment an earl had made about George’s poetry. They hadn’t even realized they had been awake all night until Katherine opened the door.  
“What’s going on?” Their pink-haired cousin asked.  
The only response she received was a grin, and a timed chorus of “George” from the other women, before they rolled out of bed, to make their way to the kitchen for breakfast- and several cups of coffee.


End file.
